Bright
by December-Never-Ends
Summary: He is like a baby clinging tightly to its mother, grabbing at the metal walls of his small room, desperately hoping his father cares for him. / Slight Keiro/Finn


In the warm heart of Incarceron's womb Finn is safe, at first. He is like a baby clinging tightly to its mother, grabbing at the metal walls of his small room, desperately looking for a stronghold to grasp on to. It is fuzzy, his first few memories, but he's snuggled cozily up against his clockwork father and he feels warm.

Finn realizes he is being watched a few weeks in. He has never given much thought to, well, anything, spending most of his days in a dreamlike trance, eluding the harsh tug of reality and floating contentedly, simply indulging in his sweet ignorant bliss. Then, he distinctly remembers catching sight of the eye one day, a red spot on the top of the low ceiling. He scrambles to his feet and leans on the smooth walls for balance as he presses his face up as close as he can get to the eye, trying to place its familiarity. He happens to glance across the room - no, the cell - and sees, in his reflection, two little ovals with a dark iris and a pitch black pupil, not unlike the prison's. Then he realizes when he blinks what his eye does and what Incarceron's eye is doing, and he screams.

Finn has never uttered a sound before, and the eye snaps to him, watching him with cold indifference. He curls up in the corner of the womb and sobs for many days, moaning in confusion. He tries to hide his face away from the eye, tries to shield himself, but he knows it is no use. Like his own two eyes, it blinks, and occasionally closes - perhaps for rest - but he knows that the prison is watching him. How could it not? The cell has grown cold.

The temperature steadily drops from there on out. Finn rips some of his hair out and realizes that his blood is warm, so he starts tearing more out until he realizes he can cut his skin by sharpening his long, rugged nails; he cuts into his arms and stomach and the soft flesh of his thighs the number on his jumpsuit, his prison outfit. He memorizes it. Sometimes he faints and soon learns that the extreme loss of blood is causing it. He does it more often. He doesn't want to know that Incarceron is watching him.

The freezing air is almost killing Finn now, and he swears that the oxygen has depleted since his birth, so he shakily reaches out a hand to the door handle. When it opens it creaks horribly and the gust of warm wind nearly knocks his off his feet. Finn crawls out onto the white floors and scurries down the corridor like a rat. The prison has long since healed all his scars, except for the one on his stomach.

He screams several times. The food comes every night, like it did in his cell, and it is a bland and tasteless blog of white mush that is served with brackish water. It is the cruelest kind of punishment, and he knows he can refuse the food and die of starvation, knows he can slit his throat with his long nails, but decides not to because maybe, just maybe, he'll be a good enough boy that father will be merciful and return him to the warmth of the wombs of Incarceron.

He sobs hysterically a few times, but the weeping grows quiet as he reaches outside of the tunnel. His jumpsuit is soiled and torn and it's crusted with blood. He drags himself out onto the dirty plane of the prison, and, as another cold blast of wind strikes him clear in the face, he wishes to be back in the warmth of his little cell. He cries for his father to tell him why he's here, begs for an answer, calls for help, but the tiny red eyes stare down at him, lazily blinking, merciless and indifferent to his suffering. The food does not come anymore and Finn grows thinner by the day.

The time after that is a blur. Finn slowly learns that begging the people living in this filth will not get him much, so he learns to lie. He plays off being blind, hungry, having a starving family back home. Helpless, weak little boys seem to strike particularly at the heart of mothers, though other children are not to be ignored. He gathers a knife at some point and finds a small stream that he sleeps near every lights-out and drinks from when he gets thirsty. A few times, he sickens, and lies frightfully near the stream, his stomach churning and his skin burning like fire. But each time, he finds a tiny vial of some sort of liquid next to him when he wakes up, and he slowly realizes the prison is keeping him alive.

He foolishly thinks that maybe Incarceron cares for him.

When Keiro finds him, he has a knife pointed to Finn's neck. Finn had attempted to bribe him into giving him food, and gone as far to grab at his pack. Finn thinks that this is a good way to die and stares Keiro down as best as he can, trying to fill his eyes with strength and not fear, and apparently it works because Keiro laughs and drags him up by the arm. He calls for his team to grab the rest of the loot they stole and leave, as he pulls Finn up over his shoulder and carries him off. Finn nods off sleepily and snuggles into Keiro's cape, and the warmth that fills him is a whole different kind than Incarceron gave him.

He's long since learned that Incarceron is metal and clockwork, but humans are comforting and bright.


End file.
